Nokia 808 PureView Specs Review

The Nokia 808 PureView is among the smartphones that generated a lot of buzz during MWC 2012, and is still heavily discussed in the blogosphere. And rightfully so, as it packs the biggest and baddest camera sensor that has ever found itself inside of a smartphone so far – 41 megapixels, 1/1.2” in size. But camera aside, is there anything else that can make it stand out?

Well, we cannot get our hands on a retail unit just yet, but until then, let us take a look at whatever Nokia 808 PureView specs we have and see what conclusions we can arrive at.

Design

The obvious drawback to having an enormous camera in a smartphone is that it physically takes up quite a lot of space. That is why the Nokia 808 PureView is pretty bulky by today's standards with a thickness of 14 millimeters. So yeah, sexy is far from the first terms one would use to describe the device. Also, it is definitely among the heaviest of smartphones as it tips the scale at 169 grams. And with that kind of weight, you will definitely be able to feel the 808 PureView in your pocket. Last but not least, its design is okay, yet surprisingly, the smartphone does not feel as that premium of a device as the Nokia N8, as it became evident from our Nokia 808 PureView hands-on review.

Display

With its 4 inches of display real estate, the Nokia 808 PureView hits the sweet spot for many smartphone users. It is neither too big, nor too little, and it is very usable with a single hand. The combination of AMOLED and ClearBlack screen technologies ensures that the display delivers rich colors and deep blacks even when used outdoors on a bright, sunny day. And to make things even better, the display's surface is protected by Gorilla Glass, meaning that it is well armored against every day wear and tear. However, there is something that we cannot overlook, namely that the display on the Nokia 808 PureView has a relatively low for its size resolution of 360 by 640 pixels, which translates into a usable, but unimpressive pixel density of 184 pixels per inch.

In terms of hardware, there isn't much that can make the Nokia 808 PureView stand out. Inside it we have a 1.3GHz single-core processor based on ARM11 architecture and backed up by 512 megabytes of RAM. However, that is more than enough to deliver a smooth Nokia Belle experience, so don't worry too much about the smartphone's seemingly underpowered hardware. On-board storage is another thing that should not be much of a concern. You get 16 gigabytes, which is okay for a contemporary smartphone, and if those full-res snaps and HD videos start piling up, you can always expand the handset's storage with a microSD card. Last but not least, we have a 1,400 mAh battery under the device's back cover. It can provide 6.5 hours of talk-time on 3G or about three weeks of stand-by time, which is acceptable by today's norms.

What runs on the 808 PureView is the Nokia Belle platform with Feature Pack 1 enhancements, which is the latest Symbian iteration to date. Thankfully, a lot has been done to its interface, which is why it now looks a lot more like a contemporary mobile platform than it did before. Multiple home screens, variety of widgets, even a drop-down menu reminiscent of that we have on Android – these are the new features that Belle introduced with its release. Besides, it runs noticeably smoother than previous versions as its code has gone through some serious optimizing. For more details, we happen to have a really nice Nokia Belle review.

Connectivity

Connectivity-wise, the Nokia 808 PureView supports everything that is essential for a modern smartphone. For web access there is Wi-Fi b/g/n, and for the times when a hot spot is not around, the 3G HSPA radio can reach peak speeds of up to 14.4Mbps. You also get Bluetooth 3.0, NFC, TV-out via Micro HDMI, and USB mass storage mode for fast and easy file transfer between the smartphone and a PC and vice versa.

Camera

The 41-megapixel camera is what makes the Nokia 808 PureView shine, and it shouldn't be surprising that thanks to it, the smartphone won the Best New Mobile Handset award at Mobile World Congress 2012. We have yet to test it out ourselves, but those Nokia 808 PureView image samples, which are also available in full resolution, look pretty good for a camera phone. Achieving that level of quality is a complicated process, so if you want to learn more about the way the 808 PureView's camera works, we have given it a full-blown overview right here. The camera experience would have not been completed if it wasn't for the xenon flash and LED light helping out in low-light situations. And when it comes to video, the handset can capture footage at 1080p resolution.

The Camera app is very simple to use

Expectations

The Nokia 808 PureView may be pretty average as a smartphone, but as a camera phone, there doesn't seem to be anything else on the market that can beat it. Still, whether that is 100% accurate will become clear once we get our hands on a final unit and put it through its paces. The smartphone is expected to become available in May and will retail for about $600 off-contract.

18.SleepingOz (unregistered)

Not Really. I would beg to differ wrt personalization...but the Belle ecosystem is certainly more limited when it comes to apps and the native browser is still not competitive. Of course, Opera Mobile/Mini are adequate replacements, but it doesn't change the fact that the Belle browser needs improvement.

Im advanced user. I wanna do everything with my phone and I prefer this 808 Pureview. If you thinks advanced users means install a lot useless apps every day (Im not) you must to choose S3. S3 its a great Smartphone. The best of the green robot. But You Its not true this : Advanced and knowing users must have S3. Simply person who dont have knowledge, can survive with 808...

The best device (Smartphone and tablet) of the year 2012 is Nokia 808 Pureview (in Mobile World Congress) with Symbian. Yep, Its the really fast, modern and much more personalizable than Android, Symbian Belle.

* You get 16 gigabytes, which is okay for a contemporary smartphone, and if those full-res snaps and HD videos start piling up, you can always expand the handset's storage with a microSD card.

- And you can also hook up a USB Flash Drive using USB On-The-Go (OTG) to backup your files. Also for hooking up other USB devices.

* Last but not least, we have a 1,400 mAh battery under the device's back cover. It can provide 6.5 hours of talk-time on 3G or about three weeks of stand-by time, which is acceptable by today's norms.

- Alternately, you can hook up any extended battery USB Charger since it supports charging through USB, like this fellow here :

Who is this guy writing the post here??? - Let me ask you this first, "I truly agree that the phone is 14mm thick but the HUGE 41MPx Sensor that is fitted on this SEXY phone is half the size of any Digi Cam of 41MPx". Just go out and see how thick a 41MPx Digital Camera is and then Compare that Camera to this Phone!

*Note: NOKIA HAVE SQUEEZED the 41MPx Sensor in just 14mm BUT without compromising the QUALITY. And also threatened famous Camera Manufacturer Olympus and other Companies like: Sony, Nikon, Fuji must be pushing themselves.... else Mobiles will eat Digital Cameras!

A Digi Cam is so Huge and Thick to carry around which weighs a lot than what this HUGE CAMERA + Smart Phone does!!

CONCLUSION:
See for the size of 41MPx Digital Camera and compare the size of that Digi Cam with Nokia' 808 Pure View. Squeezing this much bigger and heavier camera into a phone without compromising quality is not easy...

Its again a huge stepping stone for Cameras on Smartphones like Nokia did it earlier by bringing the first Camera Phone ever (7610 or 6600). Rest all just copied their innovations.

So, Stop saying Huge & Heavy my dear OLD SCHOOL writer.
Its not the phone who needs weight instructor its you who needs to read more. :-)

Thanks to all of my dears who liked my Post and all those 10 ppl who agrees to my view.... :-)

Its just I appreciate the best instead of sticking to just one particular Brand/OS because its all about Quality, Reliability, Durability and Budget when you're going to buy something you'll use every second. Which I believe Nokia does the best...

When will you understand that symbian is about to die, this phones just have 1ghz processors and 512 of ram?? No apps will work on this.. there'll be a time when ur friends start using chaton or whatsapp and those will stop workin on this "thing" don't waste your money.. buy a camera and a good phone..

Either you are really dumb, or just intentionally spreading lies. Symbian has more than 100 thousands applications and new apps are still in development. Soon it will have the only MS office solution outside of Windows Phone on mobile phones. If you think that chat applications will not work on 1 GHz processor and 512 MB RAM, you probably know very little about smartphones. Not to mention that Nokia 808 has 1.3 GHz CPU, so basicly the same CPU clock and amount of RAM like in high-end WP phones.
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"buy camera and good phone" is another retarded advice. What's the point of buying barely pocketable separate P&S camera with image quality worse than Nokia 808 ? Or are you going to run around with heavy DSLR around your neck 24h/7d ?

He probably doesn't know how terribly unoptimized Android is. How applications are interpreted in real-time by Dalvik Virtual Machine, which also has to be present in the memory all the time. All these quad-core solutions are here just to mask this OS inefficiency.

Everyone knows PA is made up of nothing more than a bunch of CR@pple fanboys. They price it everyday. Why they don't just go ahead and change their name to "iPhonearena" is beyond me.Seriously, you guys just need to commit and become a full fledged iPhone fan site.

I so Agree to you!!
At times I just feel that this SITE is either owned by yPhone(reffered to iPhone) or they are hugely bribed by Apple to write Rich words about Useless technology attached to it, Like that "touchless gesture", "NFC on yPhone" & "iPad is not yet out and these ppl are making it a HUGE hype with a b!tChFul camera of just 8MPx by Cr@pple".

**Note: It'd have been a huge Hype if Apple added a 41MPx on it yPhone/ yPad 3 for 1000$ ppl would buy it like anything and they would post best ever reviews for that. BUT WHEN THE NOKIA DID IT(in just 600$ or Rs. 30,000), ITS JUST SO HARD FOR THESE "iPhoneArena ppl to say any good about it".

1. I really never could understand, apple i phone with its launch was missing basic features(which are must but also depends what you like) those were available to even cheaper phones but never heard any criticism only slight unhappy suggestions.
Samsung is just keep producing cloning products with almost same look and negligible difference in specs but all praise to Samsung (with some exceptions though).
2. Please bring some user's name who have used even 2 % applications of their App store so that everyone get to know advantage of billions of applications.

3. Symbain 3 handsets with their not so advanced processors (as to you but sufficient for me) are running smoothly even after 1-1.5 years after their release and will be getting more updates in future but what about galaxy. galaxy 1 couldn't be upgraded to galaxy 2 and galaxy 2 will meet the same fate as galaxy 1. So what exactly are advantages or improvements those could not run on previous phone which were claimed monster phone in terms of processor power. And even with that much large difference in processor power symbian sets are still running smoothly with their so called inferior processor.

4. What exactly should be the points with this phone that even with 1.3 GHz processor it can record full HD and please also mentions other phone with same recording capabilities with their specs and enlighten the reasons why the difference and why customer has to pay for additional overload.

5. All the times with Nokia phone reviews no one cares (intentionally who knows? ) to mention or discuss all the features those were absent with other companies 2 years before and still some are missing. How many phone having USB on the go feature and even after having this feature it still has 16 GB on board what else do you want 100 TB? Why no mention to its Rich Audio recording with Digital Dolby feature and how many other phones are enriched with this quality like recording?
Free navigation with this quality how many companies are providing or saving our money? Additional TV out facilities both type.

6. You care for weight which is so important for you but on the contrary ridiculously you supports insanely large screen phone which cant be fit into pockets and may be will become the reason for new garment revolution which will result into new clothes with bags attached to jeans/ pants and may be people will start carrying LED/LCD TV with them.

7. One more important thing consider a case where a person use truck for carrying 100 kg(suppose vegetables for selling) from one place to another and there is another person using a tampo ? Who is smart? Please Please Answer since you must have understood why did I bring this ?

Totally agree with you. For some reason, people want thinnest smartphone with biggest screen. Yet with those dimensions, the phone becomes very uncomfortable to hold with one hand. Now people may say that you should hold it with two hands then, but honestly, we mostly use one hand.

The iphone looks good and all, but i held it for 30 minutes and my hand was really uncomfortable. Yet i can single handed use the N8 without any discomfort for hours on end.

Then there is the screen resolution thing. Hold the N8 at normal distance, and you dont see the pixels, unless you try really hard. Now i dont know why some one would be looking out to see the pixels on the screen instead of the image being displayed.

The tone of the article is purposefully negative. In fact, that is the case for almost all Nokia, Symbian, Microsoft, and Windows Phone articles published in this website. Every time there is something good, they say "No surprise"!! But if there is some minor thing about iPhone ar Android phones, they will magnify it 100 times and make it seem like it is the most important thing in the world. They also purposefully don't talk about the best features of Nokia 808, as some people have mentioned above. That shows how biased the authors of this website are!!

Wow! I use a Motorola razr, and I've been coming to this site for a while. I decided to register today after reading this article and was that dissolutioned that it makes me post this.. I can't believe the article forgot or didn't research the product and left out so much about what seems to be a very genuine product information. I also agree for a leading phone review and info site your lack of excitement or want to embrace any new technology that isn't quad core based seems unenthusiastic.
Super Sensor, 41 mega pixel, 140 db twin Mic, fm transmitter, huge phone storage, multiple video out, 1080p lossless zoom, some super outside visible gorilla glass screen
All that in a phone plus probably heaps more all in a tiny 14mil case.From all accounts this phone is possibly the one stop shop. I'll agree that you hasn't had hands on to get down to the nitty gritty, though there send to be allot of info from people who played with it at mwc and it seems to be living up to the hype.
So come on phone arena give me some writing that i can trust has my best intentions in mind and let me make a decision of weather I'll want it or not.

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